Examines "the history of litigation and consolidation in the legal publishing market; ... the current economics of the legal publishing market, addressing specifically the abnormally large profit margins these publishers enjoy; [finally] the current protections available to legal publishers and it will analyze the implications of granting these publishers copyright-like protection in their databases." Includes listings of trademarks, patents and copyrights of the major legal publishers, and legal publishing acquisitions timeline 1973- 2004.

"[T]he late Professor Roy Mersky once stated that lawyers' displeasure with the tools of their profession reached back to at least 1894[.] Anyone who searches through the ABA Reports or Law Library Journal will find them stuffed with committee reports, panel discussions, articles, and, at times, thesis reviews chronicling the mistrust between lawyers and law librarians and legal publishers."

For more than 23 years, the author served as the Reporter of Decisions for the United States Supreme Court, editing and publishing the decisions of the court in the official U.S. Reports. In this presentation at the 2012 Law Via the Internet conference at Cornell's Legal Information Institute, Wagner describes the work of Reporters of Decisions.

Loaded with facts and graphs about the legal publishing industry and costs of legal information. Predicts that pricing policies of major legal publishers will have "serious implications for the future structure of law library collections." Originally presented at meeting of the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries.

"Every lawyer knows that having access to all needed primary materials doesn't always help you solve a research question. What's more helpful is a work that interprets the cases and describes the procedures and rules that come from them, or a system that provides you access to only the most important, instructive cases. Books that not only describe, discuss and criticize the laws, but provide practical information about how they are applied, plus forms and examples of practical documents, are the most valuable resources[.]"

...

"[F]ree free materials ... will amount to only a minor portion of the materials that lawyers need in order to practice law, and the public needs in order to understand it."

Ed. note: The author is director of the law library and professor of law at the University of Nebraska College of Law.

"The profession has ceded quasi-monopoly control to the two main providers. Schools have given them unfettered access to students, allowing the vendors to teach their particular research methods[.] Vendors provide these for next to nothing, but such provision is hardly a gift or pro bono act. Rather, it is a shrewd and significant loss-leading investment that results in long-term, high returns by tying future lawyers to particular systems. ... I heard a representative of Westlaw protest recently [that] monopolies are not necessarily bad."

...

"It is interpretive communities that construct shared categories and, through these, allow social communication and coordinated practice around information."

Please suggest a new category, a new item for this category, or improved categorization. Tell us about dead and changed links!

We hope you find our Public Edition to be useful.

But we want you to know that our best and most useful material is provided only by subscription./p>

Our Enhanced Subscriber Edition turns you into a far more efficient, more effective user of the vast legal and governmental resources scattered across the Web as well as those that comprise the heart of Wisconsin-specific legal and governmental resources and law-practice related knowledge.

Call us or contact us through the site to learn how your firm or organization can put the full power of our Wisconsin Law Practice WebSM at your service.

Powered by LawsaurusTM expert support system software from Pritchard Law Webs.